Zack Snyder On Justice League’s Title, Logo & Shooting Schedule

It’s a great time to be alive if you’re a comic book fan. Since movies based on comic books began to seriously prove themselves at the box office around the turn of the century, the genre has exploded both on the big and small screens. Now we can not only look forward to seeing the ‘Holy Trinity’ share a screen in next week’s release of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, there’s also the prospect of at least two Justice League movies on the horizon, featuring some of DC Comics’ most iconic characters.

The first of these movies is set to begin filming in the UK in just a few weeks, with Batman V Superman and Man of Steel‘s Zack Snyder once again directing. The film will unite Superman (Henry Cavill), Batman (Ben Affleck), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), The Flash (Ezra Miller) and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) as a fully-fledged superhero team after Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice lays the initial groundwork (hence the subtitle). But with some criticizing Snyder’s Batman V Superman‘s full moniker for being a bit of a mouthful, Snyder has addressed the question of whether Justice League will keep things a bit more simple.

“Right now the working title is Justice League,” Snyder said in a new interview with Collider. While that may sound like good news for those who are hoping Justice League‘s final title will keep things simple, it sounds like Snyder may simply be waiting for the right subtitle to come along.

“I’m in that phase where I’ve been drawing logos and I’ve been drawing title treatments and stuff like that to try and figure out what it means, what Justice League is, visually, so we’ll see if the name evolves with this visual presentation.”

Of course, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with Justice League having a subtitle – especially since there’ll be a second movie along in 2019 and it will be necessary to differentiate the two. The main issue with Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice‘s title is that the two concepts (a gladiator match between superheroes, and those same superheroes working together) didn’t gel particularly well. If Snyder can come up with an awesome-sounding alternative to the plain-but-elegant ‘Justice League’, fans will no doubt get on board with it.

Snyder is one of the key architects of the DCEU, so perhaps it’s no surprise that he’s designing the logo for Justice League himself. The director explained that he did the same for Batman V Superman‘s logo (which features Superman’s “S” Kryptonian symbol of hope inside Batman’s bat logo), drawing on existing designs: “The Batman V Superman logo I drew so long ago. I know there’s versions of it that existed anyway, but that one in particular I [drew].”

Batman V Superman doesn’t just lay the narrative groundwork for Justice League; it also smooths out the production schedule, since the Gotham and Metropolis sets have already been built. Even though Justice League already has a very generous stretch of time between its initial filming start date and its November 2017 release date, Snyder says it will probably take slightly less time to film than Batman V Superman.

“The schedule’s close, it’s not quite as long, but give or take. We have a more efficient machine in England because we have a big backlot that we built for Gotham and Metropolis, so it’ll be easier to photograph than when you have to close down streets. But it’s a beautiful backlot.”

The UK seems to be the go-to location for Warner Bros.’ DC-based movies right now, with Wonder Woman currently filming both at Pinewood Studios and on location (including two weeks of night shoots at an RAF base). Justice League may well end up sticking to the sound stages, but if the production includes some on-location shooting we could see some set photos emerge in the coming months.

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice opens on March 25th, 2016; Suicide Squad on August 5th, 2016; Wonder Woman on June 23rd, 2017; Justice League Part 1on November 17th, 2017; The Flash on March 23rd, 2018; Aquaman on July 27th, 2018; Shazam on April 5th, 2019; Justice League Part 2 on June 14th, 2019; Cyborg on April 3rd, 2020; Green Lantern Corps on June 19th, 2020. Untitled Batman and Superman Solo Films will be coming at dates TBD.